31st May 2002
Countess Markievicz is back on the Seanad stairs in Leinster House. That is, her portrait is back. When I was first elected to Seanad Éireann in 1992 there was a respectable increase in the number of women elected to both the Dáil and the Seanad.
One of the first things we noticed was that there was not one woman's portrait amongst all the men. Right enough there were engravings of the Duchess of Leinster both before and after she had had her seventeen children but nothing in the way of any political portrait.
It was agreed that if I could find one of Countess Markievicz, the first woman elected to the House of Commons (although she did not take her seat) and the Minister for Labour in the first Dáil, we would seek to get it hung in a prominent position in Leinster House. The only instructions I got was that, if possible, she should not be in military uniform, there being plenty of people so attired in Leinster House already.
All those who had portraits of her did not want to part with them but eventually I found one in the National Gallery of the Countess in an elegant evening dress and the powers that be there agreed to lend her. She presided over the Seanad stairs for 8 years but when redecorations were taking place she was sent back to the Gallery for safe keeping and it has taken some time to restore her to her now rightful position.
The Countess was the most prominent woman leader in the Rising, fighting in the Royal College of Surgeons on St. Stephen's Green. What sort of influence did this well educated, travelled woman have on the men with whom she was firstly planning the Rising and then taking part in it? She doesn't sound very pacific and most of what we know of her concerns her life in Lissadell, with her suffragette sister or with her artist husband on the Continent. Her involvement with the Fianna shows she had military inclinations and running soup kitchens makes one feel she had a very domestic side to her character, as well. Her daughter, her only child, saw little of her mother, however, being brought up by the extended family. But what was her influence on her male colleagues? I gather she had to fight hard to get her seat at the Cabinet Table even after all she had done in the Rising.
Influence on male colleagues was badly needed in Saipan. Would we have had the débâcle that resulted from the dispute between Mick and Roy if there had been a few women on the scene? I heard on a radio programme a man involved in organising conferences abroad and at home say he always sent a woman manager ahead to the venue - a woman because he said women are better at noticing details - to make sure everything would be alright.
Why wasn't a woman sent out to check on the football boots and shorts, isn't that what we are at every day in life? And as for the thirst quenching drinks, life for many mothers wouldn't feel the same if she wasn't filling plastic lunch bottles every morning. I am sure a woman would have brought enough extra plasters for cut knees and whatever is needed for "groin strains", whatever they may be. The big mistake was not to send a woman ahead.
Irish women, despite the Aer Lingus pilots, went off to the World Cup. Maybe our fans are considered so socially acceptable world wide because of these saints who have a modifying effect on aggressive behaviour. Millwall and Chelsea should encourage local ladies to become leading fan club members and they might not have the problems they so frequently seem to have with their supporters.
Women prison officers in male prisons are now commonplace. I have been told that the aim is usually to have about 10% of the officers female because this appears to help with the behaviour of prisoners. In view of the fact that I have seen male prison officers in the women's prison in Mountjoy the opposite must be considered important, too. There are only a little over the required 10% (13% actually) of women elected to the Oireachtas, sad to think that the electorate feels that is enough to keep the place civilised.
I am one of those who find the idea that men and women should be seen as being in constant conflict depressing. Much more interesting, I think, is the influence we have on each other. If anyone has any information on the effect the Countess had on her co-activists in 1916 perhaps they would let me know.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
